


All has been before

by Qayin



Series: Loyalty [1]
Category: Norse Religion & Lore, Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Family, Loki and Hela are related in more ways than one, Loki's Kids, M/M, Parent Loki, Pregnant Loki, Ragnarok, Thor: Ragnarok spoilers?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 13:00:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12531976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qayin/pseuds/Qayin
Summary: Everything that’s ever been has been before. That doesn’t mean it happens in the right order. Loki the younger doesn’t look like Loki the elder. He do however look like Hela.Odin should have recognised Loki's spark when he found him on Jotunhiem; after all, he is his sworn brother and the mother of his firstborn.





	All has been before

Everything that’s ever been has been before. Ragnarök happens in an endless cycle, in different ways, different cycles, different settings but always the same sparks. 

However, when Odin finds the prince of the frost giants hidden away, left to die on the eve of battle with the rest of his kind, Odin doesn’t see that spark for what it is. He’s worn and suffering, and don’t recognize how that spark will fan into a flame that should be so familiar to him. 

He takes the child, sees the skin turn from Jotun to Asgardian and leaves the frost giants retched lands. It’s only when Frigga asks much later, cradling the little runt in her arms like he’s the most precious thing she has ever seen, what they will call their new son that he is reminded of another whose skin could shift colour, another who had had the chance to bridge the gap between worlds that just never seemed to get along. It’s been a long time since he thought of his sworn blood brother, but his name slips past his lips as easily as it had in his golden days.

“Loki.” Frigga spares him a pitying gaze, but the child in her arms soon draws her attention again. Even the weight of a loved one’s death lessens after a few hundred years. 

Love blinds them both from that moment forth; so what if the child grows up with a too familiar grin? So what if he have a penchant for mischief and he both pulls Thor in and out of as much trouble as his blood brother would put Odin in? So what if he possess magic? Plenty of Jotun are magic. 

His son looks nothing like his brother. The first Loki was redheaded with something vicious burning in his eyes. Besides the physical the younger Loki have a gentleness the elder didn’t possess. Odin fails to notice the despair growing underneath that gentleness until Loki the elder is staring down at him through the eyes of his son and everything starts to slip into sense. 

Everything that’s ever been has been before. That doesn’t mean it happens in the right order. Loki the younger doesn’t look like Loki the elder. He do however look like Hela. 

After Odin hung from the world tree but before he was a God, Loki and he crossed paths. Together they fought great foes and forged a bond stronger than the foundations of the earths. When the norns predicted Odin’s rise to power they saw a glorious empire. All he needed was a prophesied child by his side. 

“How can I assist you, my liege?” Loki’s words were always smoother than silver. Ragnarök was strong within him even then. 

Odin fathered Hela through Loki’s magic. It wasn’t the weirdest that had happened, Loki once gave birth and gifted Odin a eight-legged horse, so Odin was used to seeing Loki change forms - becoming a woman, he reasoned, was much easier than becoming a horse. 

Sadly, Odin was never much of a father. He was much better at being a king; brilliant as a tactician, and born, some would say behind closed doors, to be an executioner. But he was never a father, not when he really needed to be. Not to Hela, or Loki. Not even to Thor. 

When it came to his children, he always failed to see the important things until it was too late. Hela he had to betray; banish and lock away like an animal when she grew too strong. He had to banish Thor for arrogance. It was only fitting that what he would do to Loki would be to break the boy’s heart. After all, he had done worse to his people, and even worse to the children of his previous reincarnation. 

When his brother Loki died, Odin was responsible. Because Loki was a better father than he was, and Loki, sworn to Odin through a bond neither had ever thought would break as he was, could never accept when Odin ordered Hela and Loki’s other monsterous children dead. Odin had only been trying to stop Ragnarök, but he had always been powerless against the flame that was Loki, and Loki had always been the start of Ragnarök. 

Slaying his brother did nothing but prolong it. Loki was reborn and the norns made him Odin’s son. No matter which cycle, no matter Loki’s role; brother, mother, father, son; Ragnarök comes for Asgard. 

After all, everything that has ever been has been before.

**Author's Note:**

> Cate Blanchett was amazing as Hela and no one can convince me that she's not Loki's daughter.


End file.
